KMO talks with Marshall Brain, founder of HowStuffWorks, about the path that the United States is on with regard to jobs, automation, profitability and social cohesion. Marshall is the author of a novel calledMannathat describes the dark road we’re on and one possible alternative. Is automation finally bringing the so-called “contradictions of capitalism” to a head? Perhaps we’re just going through a rough patch. Maybe the technological trends that are destroying middle class livelihoods and replacing them with McJobs will deliver us to the capitalist nirvana that the lords of Silicone Valley promise is just over the horizon. Maybe we need to revist some of the assumptions enshrined in the current economic orthodoxy.